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Interactive Works 2017

Artificial World

“I am Eva. I would like to welcome you to ‘The Second Chance’ research institute for biodiversity. Most life went extinct and you are almost the last of your kind.” Eva is an AI, an artificial intelligence, built to restore balance on earth. Two worlds clash in this 360-degree film. A motley organic microcosm created in the sterile interior of a super computer, suggests a possible future. Humanity puts its fate into Eva’s hands. Can we trust her judgement? Is there a place for us at all in this new artificial world?

The Congo Tribunal: Witness J & The Hearings

The game “Witness J.” is part of the transmedia project “The Congo Tribunal” which investigates the background of the biggest and bloodiest economic war in history. We are thrown into a massacre in the village of Mutarule. Shot and delirious, we are trying to find a safe place … In addition to this browser game, a room scale VR experience lets us undergo even more intensely the reality lived by the victims of the Congo war. An additional comprehensive online archive, consisting of the complete filmed material for “The Congo Tribunal”, enables us to browse and edit the footage individually.

Deep Inside / Gluboko vnutri

This web documentary reveals what’s supposed to be hidden from the eyes of society. 1,030 people are “held in safe custody” in one of Russia’s biggest secure mental hospitals in Peterhof near St. Petersburg – locked away and isolated from the outside world. Interviews with employees and patients offer intimate insights into the lives of the “invisible people”, which follow a different rhythm. Time passes, flowing like the tracking shot through the seemingly endless corridors of the institute. The audience decide whether they walk past the rooms, look into them or “enter” at last to meet the residents.

The Invented Village / A cidade inventada

“I wound up in here. In paradise. Itapuã is like a five star hotel for me. It’s my home.” A village surrounded by mountains and forest. Founded in the 1940s, Itapuã was home to almost 2,500 people so far. Today only 35 are left, all of them over 60. The portrait of a miniature city, built as the solution to a complex problem. A virtual map in which the content can be activated step by step guides us through the story. The inhabitants reminisce. Old documents and photos as well as films shot then and today gradually reveal the sad truth that links those who remained in Itapuã.

BIOSCOPE

A gang of garden gnomes is terrorising the city. A ladybug as a basketball. A girl skipping rope on top of an earthworm. A bird being beaten up. The riot of detail in this two by four metre work of art recalls paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder or Hieronymus Bosch, but it’s more than a painting. What we see is an analogue animation, grotesque scenery animated by the spectators’ movements and their interaction with the picture – completely without electricity. The technology – lenticular printing – is known from flip images and 3D postcards.

The Maribor Uprisings:A Live Participatory Film

“Twice we went into the streets. Twice the police drove us away. Twice the news media embedded behind the police lines portrayed us all as hooligans and criminals. Things looked different on our side of the police line.” The viewers find themselves in the middle of the third Maribor uprising in Slovenia. Stay on “Freedom Square” and protest peacefully with the others? Or put banners and whistles aside to have your hands free for a rougher form of protest? This participatory film forces its viewers again and again to choose – experienced individually in the exhibition and as a cinema experience with collective voting.

Planet ∞

Pollution, food shortages, exploitation of resources, arms race and nuclear threat – all of them warning catchphrases for a changing – no, changed by us – earth. We need it as a biosphere, but it doesn’t need us. “Planet ∞” shows a 360-degree space taken over by one of many possible dystopias. There is no human life left in this new world. The planet has changed so much that only a few organisms are able to survive. Only mushrooms, insects and marine creatures are capable of adapting to the new conditions. Is this doom-mongering or realistic fear?

Notes to My Father

Jayisha Patel 360° Film India, USA / 2017 / 11min

widemanagement.com/virtualreality“We never talked about what happened to me there. But the truth is darker than any memory could be. So black that its silence haunts me. How do you go on living when you’ve played dead to escape reality for such a long time?”

This delicate 360-degree film takes us to India, into the life and memories of Ramadevi, a woman sold to sex traffickers under cover of an arranged marriage. She is one of the few who escaped the brothel and were reunited with their families. This piece is dedicated to her father, who gave away his daughter in the belief that he was giving her a better life.

Sea Prayer

Aylan Kurdi, a three-year-old Syrian boy, drowned while attempting to cross the Mediterranean. On 2 September 2015 his body was washed up on a Turkish beach. The photo of the dead boy spread across the world under the hashtag #KiyiyaVuranInsanlik – humanity washed away – and will probably be remembered forever because of the enormous media attention it got. Touched by a fate that was so expressively summarised in this one photo, Khaled Hosseini, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, wrote the monologue “Sea Prayer”: a father’s fictitious letter to his son, just before their escape to Europe. Illustrated by Liz Edwards using “Tilt Brush”, a 3D painting tool.

HOMO DIGITALIS – How Much Longer Are We Going to Stay Human?

We live in times of upheaval. More and more technical innovations are part of our everyday life. But how dependent do we want to be? Or are we already addicted? Will there be a time when we have nothing but digital friendships, sex with robots, when we hack our own bodies? The transmedia project “HOMO DIGITALIS” consists of a documentary web series and a self testing game. How does the digital revolution affect us human beings? Does it turn Homo sapiens into a new species – Homo digitalis?